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The Open-Office Trap

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Re: The Open-Office Trap

#101

Post by joesmo »

nerfhammer wrote: post #70
mrb wrote: post #43

Well, Facebook is building the world's largest open bullpen office, with 2800 workers in 1 room(!) I wonder what they think of this research that shows open office plans being detrimental. http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/27/article-2331658-1A... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2584738/Now-T...

They know about the research but usually say it's more important that "openness" is a "core value" e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5768771

Which is a lame cover for the real reason of not wanting to spend the extra money.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#102

Post by MCRed »

Here's my argument against open office: I work in the dark.

I am sensitive to the flickering of fluorescent lights that most people cannot see. Most offices have standard fluorescent lights, often with cheap bulbs or ballasts that have not been changed since the building was built.

People also have different temperatures that they are comfortable at.

So, you really need at minimum four offices: Dark & Cold Dark & Warm Light & Cold Light & Warm

This ignores all the other problems with open offices and cubicle farms. Programmers really need to spread out. You need a whiteboard, preferably a large one for every two programmers. They need a desk big enough to support two or three monitors (if you're only giving them one, you're being penny wise and pound foolish, most likely.) Many programmers like to have books open for reference on the table. Or documents, etc.

Collaboaration is higher in my experience when people have their own offices or a few people per office. Focus is much higher.

Why kill productivity by %30 (a low estimate for the negative impact on my personal productivity) in order to save a fraction of an engineers salary?

I think it's just bad management.

But the nice thing is, these people advertise that they have open floorpans, like they don't even realize it's a mistake, and that makes it easy to just say "next" when looking at jobs.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#103

Post by stefan_kendall3 »

ebiester wrote: post #81
untog wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a team chatroom? Are you ever distracted by messages you receive in it? For me the two are very similar. I work in an open plan office and enjoy being able to talk to my co-workers - often someone will pull their chair up to someone else's to pair program for a while, or just discuss the issue they're having. If you don't want interruptions, you put headphones on. It works well.

Have you figured out "eye headphones" to remove the visual noise as well?

If you find something let me know. I literally want blinders to complement my QC-25s. It's the only way to get things done.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#104

Post by imanaccount247 »

pm90 wrote: post #7
thanatosmin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.

That's probably not affordable for a majority of companies.

It is almost certainly affordable for the vast majority of them. And as the article points out, evidence suggests that they are losing money by not investing in proper office space. Walls are a hell of a lot cheaper than lost employee productivity.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#105

Post by Negitivefrags »

michaelochurch wrote: post #40
mwfunk wrote: post #22

Open office plans seem really polarizing on HN, but it surprises me how often people defend them here (or even evangelize them). For software development, it seems like something that has no upside at all (aside from saving money on office space), and tons of downsides. For the people who do prefer them (and also spend most of their time writing code), I would be curious to know the following: (1) How many years have…

For software development, it seems like something that has no upside at all (aside from saving money on office space), and tons of downsides. Commercial real estate is about $3/SF (per month) in San Francisco (Class A) and $4/SF in Manhattan. Open plan offices save about 75-100 SF per employee (more, if you're looking to be sadistic and impractical, but at this point, the productivity loss is obvious.) So the employe…

Having individual offices is is a lot more complex then just more space.

Actually building these things is non trivial. It's not just walls, it's air con vents, electrics, etc. I also think you may be underestimating the extra space required to make an office not feel like a closet.

Then there is natural light. In a big open plan space light travels to the entire space. With offices you either need to build on the edge of the building and have a window, or make at least one wall out of glass (expensive). Even doing that you still can't just take a big room and turn it into partitioned offices.

The capital outlay for a company to fit out a space with individual offices is actually really high and it all comes in one big hit. I'm sure if it was a matter of just paying 5k per employee extra per year the story would be different, but that isn't really a reality.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#106

Post by awjr »

ryandrake wrote: post #94
mwfunk wrote: post #22

Open office plans seem really polarizing on HN, but it surprises me how often people defend them here (or even evangelize them). For software development, it seems like something that has no upside at all (aside from saving money on office space), and tons of downsides. For the people who do prefer them (and also spend most of their time writing code), I would be curious to know the following: (1) How many years have…

I'm apparently one of the few unashamed Open Office boosters here, so let me see if I can help. I've worked as a developer for about 12+ years, then as a product/project manager for about 4 years. As a developer, I worked about half that time in soft-walled cubicles of various heights and another half in open office environments. I spent a year or so in a shared walled office. As a project guy, I spent about 3 years…

I have to say, what you describe as a manager seems to be more about the benefit to yourself and the way you 'control' your developers and less about trying to provide an environment that is efficient for your devs to deliver code. A lot of the benefits you think you get from an open plan office seem to be achievable through tools like slack.com . Open plan really really sucks as a developer.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#107

Post by toomuchtodo »

briandear wrote: post #54
toomuchtodo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have your developers work from home then. I work for a fully funded startup where the entire team is remote. I would never go back to an office (I have insane levels of productivity compared to my last gig that had an open office plan, not to mention 0 commute time).

Bravo! My productivity (and motivation) is orders of magnitude higher when I can work in my house in the South of France or at my mother in law's house on the Mexican Riviera.) I will give you 10 hours a day of full productivity if you can save me from my old Jersey City-NYC commute. I don't need to play ping pong with you to build great software for you.

Thank you! Part of my motivation for taking the job was my wife wanted the ability for us to live in Nice, France for a bit. I've noticed you mention in your HN posts that you live in the South of France; congrats on the ability to do that!

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#108

Post by dasil003 »

jobu wrote: post #73
mwfunk wrote: post #22

Open office plans seem really polarizing on HN, but it surprises me how often people defend them here (or even evangelize them). For software development, it seems like something that has no upside at all (aside from saving money on office space), and tons of downsides. For the people who do prefer them (and also spend most of their time writing code), I would be curious to know the following: (1) How many years have…

> My current theory is that most of it comes from people who are still in the honeymoon phase of their career (like, the first few years after college when everything about the workplace still has some novelty to it). Or are younger people able to handle more distractions? I don't mean that in the sense of "those kids these days", but as a more general developmental thing. In college I remember doing homework while w…

I don't know because I'm old enough that when I was fresh out of college there were no smart phones, and the only people on chat were tech nerds and college students, so the background distraction was just much much lower.

But what I will say is that distraction is bad for everyone, and being objective about ones performance is very difficult. A lot of people claim to be good at multi-tasking because that is what a lot of work environments demand, and so people learn to cope, but on the other side of the coin, many of these supposed multi-taskers have never sat down and thought deeply with enough focus to really solve a difficult problem the right away.

Software development is one field where the rigor forces you to learn this or eventually be exposed as incompetent, but I believe it is useful in any professional work that involves solving problems. Great solutions do not come from raw intelligence, they come from intelligence applied over time. If you can't focus and construct a persistent mental model then you might have a 200 IQ but still not be able to design a good system.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#109

Post by toomuchtodo »

pbreit wrote: post #86
briandear wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bravo! My productivity (and motivation) is orders of magnitude higher when I can work in my house in the South of France or at my mother in law's house on the Mexican Riviera.) I will give you 10 hours a day of full productivity if you can save me from my old Jersey City-NYC commute. I don't need to play ping pong with you to build great software for you.

There are very few companies that enjoy outsized success with such a setup. So I think the retort to your final sentence is likely "Yes, you do".

Perhaps those companies should learn how to manage better?

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#110

Post by srj »

mwfunk wrote: post #22

Open office plans seem really polarizing on HN, but it surprises me how often people defend them here (or even evangelize them). For software development, it seems like something that has no upside at all (aside from saving money on office space), and tons of downsides. For the people who do prefer them (and also spend most of their time writing code), I would be curious to know the following: (1) How many years have…

I've worked in software development post-college for 7 years. The first 3 I had my own office and for the last 4 I've been in an open space.

I really think this is a matter of personal taste to a large degree, but for my part I prefer the ability to ask questions readily and listen in on what my colleagues are working on. I think the point you're trying to make about an 'interruption deficit' is off the mark. Someone new to a team is going to ask many more questions than a veteran and it's certainly damaging to their ability to learn if asking questions is a chore or unwelcome socially. Email and messaging apps are alternatives of course, and are often the right choice when the question doesn't merit interruption. But sometimes a quick answer is needed to progress at all and being able to turn around and say something makes things faster.

In open office spaces people are still able to work from a laptop somewhere else, put on headphones, or work from home. And having your own office doesn't mean you aren't interrupted. People would tend to come by for long periods of time when I had an office, seemingly because they were starved of social interaction.

A caveat to all this is that for a brief period I was in an overly crowded open office arrangement and that was very much detrimental to my work.

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